Fire Season
Floor Speech

Washington, DC
November 1, 2007

As wildfires rage in California, some suggested that climate change may be responsible for the extraordinary fire seasons of the last few years. Few would seriously argue, however, that climate change was responsible for the "Big Blowup" of 1910, where 3 million acres of forest land in Idaho and Montana were consumed in just a few days, and 78 firefighters were killed.

This year in Idaho 2.2 million acres have burned. In California as we speak, 14 people lost their lives, 2,100 homes were destroyed as that week-long blaze roared across the greater Los Angeles basin. Over 809 square miles of land was charred, and now, about the time the fires are to die down, we hear rumors that the Santa Ana winds are expected to pick up again and we could possibly find ourselves back in flames in California.

I take the issue of wildfires very seriously, and recently took to the Senate Floor to speak about this year's devastating fires.